Recent notes have talked about the purchase of undeveloped land from either the Crown or from Lord Fairfax, the proprietor in the Northern Neck. There were several steps involved in doing this.
First, one had to locate land that was available, i.e., unclaimed land. Usually this would be beyond the border or the frontier. In seeking land on which to raise a family, one would be competing with the land speculators would try to claim land just beyond the frontier. The group which comprised the so-called Knights of the Golden Horseshoe were probably land speculators who were looking for unclaimed land which would be attractive for resale. Sometimes it was necessary to go quite a distance to find land. The Second Colony members went out about 20 miles beyond the edge of civilization to find theirs. After you found your land, you had to mark it so that others would know that it was being claimed. Since it cost very little to mark a few trees, a lot of land was probably marked just in case some interest in it did develop.
Second, if you were serious about a permanent claim to the land, you had to secure rights for a survey. These were the headrights or they were the treasury warrants. One headright or five shillings in a treasure warrant allowed one to claim fifty acres. If your tract contained more than 400 acres, than special permission had to be obtained from the Council and Governor. If you think this democratic measure was to prevent a few individuals from taking up large parcels of land, than guess again. In practice it appears to be a method of preventing individuals from competing with the Governor and his friends in securing large tracts. Lt. Gov. Spotswood had no trouble in obtaining approval for a patent of 40,000 acres.
Third, one had to enter the location with the County Surveyor. The man who held this job was officially appointed by the County Justices after he was approved by the College of William and Mary as being qualified. After one had registered the general location with the surveyor, one could sell the land even though it was not yet surveyed. When entered, one had to provide a broad description of the land including an exact specification of the number of acres to be surveyed. Thus one should be an amateur surveyor to have just about the right amount of land.
Then one had to schedule a survey by the approved surveyor. This required a payment to him for his survices. Sometimes people would put off doing this in an attempt to stretch their money. But it opened the door to lawsuits and arguments. One other way that delaying the survey saved money was that the property did not appear on the quitrent lists (the property tax rolls). One person delayed the survey for eighteen years. The cost of the survey was a major part of the expense of obtaining the patent.
When the survey was complete, the surveyor had to make a plat of the land and give a copy to the owner. The patentee had one year to submit the plat, surveyor's certificate, and other papers to the land office. Finally, the land office who would issue a patent (for Crown lands) or a grant (for lands in the Northern Neck from the proprietor).
There was one final step in this process and, without it, you could lose the land. It was requirement that one seat and cultivate the land. Within three years, a structure had to be placed on the land and three acres of corn or tobacco planted for every fifty acres of land. If this requirement was not met, the land could be claimed by someone else. Many times the larger parcels, which had been patented in the hope of selling at a quick profit were in danger of being lost and the original patentee would repeat the whole process and repatent the land again. Sometimes the patentees would play games and add some more land to the original patent and repatent the new combination. One could use this ploy to overcome the time limits for seating land patents or grants.
To keep the land, one had to pay quitrents which were usually one shilling per fifty acres. This was of the nature of a real estate tax.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.